Self-Evaluation

Back around 2003 while I was building guitars in the shop off of my father’s art studio in Tucson, I experimented with an Oso body. I call it that because it is similar to the Zuni bear fetishes in shape. At the time Klein was building an interestingly shaped electric guitar that was designed so the neck would be elevated, angling upward when the guitarist was seated as opposed to parallel with the ground. This appealed to me, as my classical training has always come into play when positioning any guitar or bass I play. I didn’t want to copy a Klein, even if I was in the learning stages, so I came up with the Oso body.

I ended up making two Oso guitars, one black with EMG strat pickups and one yellow with two Lace P-90 pickups and a three way switch. The black guitar had a nice lacquer paint job, thanks to my father. The yellow I stained and sealed myself. Between the two the yellow Oso was a more successful instrument once the build was completed. I pulled it out of my closet today here in Oak Park and put it through its paces this morning, after years away from it, just to refresh my memory and reassess the instrument.

The guitar is quite comfortable on the leg, and on the shoulder as well. I carved the body from ash, and it is smaller than say a Telecaster so the weight is fairly light, but not as light as swamp ash. The neck is maple with a rosewood fretboard. I carved a tall bone nut from a blank, and the bridge is a Schaller roller bridge with the spacer still attached to the base. The tuners are Schallers as well. I have the action set as low as I could get it, but there is some buzz on the low E and A at the sixth and seventh fret. The neck is flat, no bow, so if I took it off and adjust it a bit I might be able to remedy that issue.

The guitar sounds quite good, particularly when using the neck pickup. It produces a nice clear tone across the spectrum that warms up as the tone is rolled back. The bridge pickup sounds quite good as well, with some bite but the highs aren’t piercing which is a relief. When the two pickups are combined the tone is a bit weak and quacky. Unfortunately it’s not one that I would choose to use, and I don’t think there would be too many alternative takers out there who would. I am pleased though with how the neck pickup worked out, as it is the one that I use most anyway.

The neck is narrow across the fretboard and the string spacing is a bit on the narrow side as well. This makes for fast picking, but also necessitates more precision with left hand finger placement. It doesn’t take much to send the low E string over the edge. The frets feel a bit tall, especially close to the nut which feels a little bumpy when sliding down to them. I might be a bit overly sensitive on this right now, as I have some cracked skin that is bumping along over them. One aspect that does displease me was that the access to adjust the truss rod is in the neck join like the original Fender guitars. This makes adjusting the truss rod a bit of a pain since I have to take the neck off to make changes. I built this guitar before I learned how to build the neck with the truss rod access at the headstock, though. Later attempts eliminated that issue.

Overall, it’s a better instrument than I originally thought it was, and everything is still solid on it fourteen years after I built it. That pleases me immensely. That being said, there are definitely points that need improvement. The neck pocket needs to be about a quarter inch deeper, allowing the strings to come down to the pickups more closely, and then the two areas with some fret buzz could be refined somewhat. All in all, though it’s definitely not a bad guitar for a somewhat early attempt at building, especially when the reality is that I only did this for about a year, maybe a year and a half. I have another from the same period that is still in Tucson. It is blue with has a single cutaway and is a more traditional shape in some ways. It is loaded with a pair of Rio Grande humbuckers in a Les Paul configuration. I’m looking forward to bringing that one home and re-evaluating it as well.